And Now, The Group

The first distinctive changes were cautious: fluttering, real-life lashes and movable glass eyes. Later, as the times grew more daring, belly buttons appeared between skimpy bikini halves; dimpled knees and smooth, fleshy thighs flashed below microminis; nipples poked through braless blouses. Even mannequins, it seems, keep up with the times.

Last week a window of Manhattan's R.H. Macy's displayed the latest trend in store dummies: "groupings." There, apparently engaged in conversation, was a trio of plastic, stylized males with featureless faces and bald heads. Such clusters of interacting mannequins, now on display at many major department stores, often waltz, golf, and even play baseball, as silent spectators look on at the fence. "The old mannequins with their screwed-on heads and half-witted expressions are gone," says Norman Glazer, national sales manager for Wolf & Vine, a Los Angeles mannequin manufacturer. "They were real dummies, no better than hangers with heads."

Dummies of the '70s are often as eye-catching as the fashions they wear.

Many of the groupings are formed by surreal figures with whitewashed, featureless faces or glossy, froglike eyes.

Others sport the natural look--freckles, carefully separated toes that slip neatly into thongs, and the increasingly prominent nipples and navels.

Over the years, store-window dummies have gone through almost as many phases as their garments. Early mannequins were sculpted from wax, and had a tendency to droop and drip in sunny display windows. Later came models of plaster, papier-mache and several varieties of more durable plastic. Though small boutiques balk at the idea of discarding outmoded dummies (average price: $300), most larger stores oust passe mannequins as quickly as last season's duds. But groupings, which can be easily rearranged into different patterns, may have a longer life than most individual mannequins.

Bellies and Bottoms. To keep up with merchandising trends, most mannequin manufacturers employ research divisions that keep a sharp eye on fashion and retailing changes, and even try to anticipate them. "We have to know down to the second the latest happening," explains Bernard Robbins, president of Manhattan's Herzberg-Robbins. "After all, we want to reflect the newest look, including hair styles and makeup." When black pride swelled in the early '60s, mannequin makers were ready with black models. More recently, they have created "the ethnic look": dummies with Mexican, Eurasian or Oriental features. Some mannequin makers have picked up the nostalgia craze and created Marilyn Monroe models. "We've made the figures rounder and softer, with bellies and bottoms," says William O'Connor of Adel Rootstein. The Houston department store Sakowitz & Co. asked D.G. Williams & Co. to mold the boss's wife, comely Pamela Sakowitz, in plastic. With the aid of photographs and sittings, Williams created a series of plastic Pams as a display gimmick for Sakowitz windows. Not to be outdummied, Gimbel Bros, requested a model of Heiress Sophie Gimbel; Garfinckel's in Washington, D.C., asked for their well-known fashion director, Sally Frame.

Not every mannequin maker caters to the whim of such major high-fashion stores. Others sell solely to chain stores

and discount houses, and generally mold mannequins several sizes larger than those produced for smarter stores. The theory, apparently, is that the thinner the wallet, the broader the beam.

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